A city like a painting – Seattle, Washington

Hey Fellas, after such an amazing trip to Lake Tahoe and Reno I planned on visiting my friend at Seattle. Before we get on with the trip, few were like are these trips recent ? meh, it isn’t. The ones I write now are like 3 years back precisely 2015 – 2016. I am writing based on my actual travel sequence. I hope this answers most of your questions on how latest are my writings. So my friend was my schoolmate who shared my kindergarten days to the third-grade ones. But it was after years I was gonna meet her.

My flight was early in the morning at SFO airport. I pretty much slept in the airport itself the whole night as I didn’t want to disturb my family friends sleep after their journey from Reno(Link). The very first time I had to stay the complete night at the airport, It was so amazing as I was searching for food, whiling away terminal checking out people 😛 and sleeping somewhere in the between safeguarding my baggage. Finally, In half sleep, I boarded the right flight to Seattle. What does the first thing come to your mind when you hear about Seattle? Yes, that’s right I hear you all. There is where both the wealthiest companies Amazon’s and Microsoft’s head Quarters are present.

The excitement was to see her after years and the stories listened about the city made me excited the moment I set foot on the flight to Seattle. It was early morning around 6 am. Precisely 1 degree to 2 degree Celsius. I got out of the airport, It was freezing and I managed to get to the train station just enquiring people around. the plan was to meet up half way as I took the metro and reached Union Station and she was already waiting for me. It had been over a decade since I met her. I was welcomed with the same old warm smile and a hug 🙂

Few glances of Gasworks Park

I got to stay at one of her guy friend’s place, I took rest for a few hours and in the meantime, she already had a plan as to all places to be visited. With a good breakfast, we kicked the day. The first point was Gas works state park. Even before we gotta discuss about the gas works park I need to let you guys know, we just used public transport where ever we went just because we were students back then and it was harder to rent out a car every single day in addition to which I was less than 25 years back then which asked for an excess of 10 dollars every single day. So we use this ORCA (One Regional Card for All) pass for our complete travel. Which is comfortable at the same time economical if it is less than 3 people.

( Seattle + Me ) in a nutshell

It was a pretty chill day ranging about 5 degrees. The gas works park gave a spectacular view of the downtown with birds chirping at the corners, ducks all over the lake and tourist boats. We spend a good amount of time viewing the scenery and having a conversation about our lost decade friendship. It was great catching up and got to see how life had been for us. After this nostalgic catch up, we headed over to Chinatown and started feeling the difference between the actual city and the Chinese side of Seattle. Where all the stores, restaurants, massage places and what not, were all named in Chinese and had Chinese structures to the buildings. You name it, they had the Chinese version of it LOL 😛

Downtown and Chinatown

On the way back we walked through the downtown and finally found an Indian restaurant accidentally and our stomach was not even listening to look for reviews, it wanted us to just go and have food. After which we decided to go to Kerry Park. Kerry Park is a perfect viewpoint to see the complete city with an elevated view. It offers amazing morning views as well an exemplary lighted view of the Seattle downtown. After this amazing beauty, we chose to head home. Legs have already given up on us. Since we weren’t driving we even slept off in the bus itself. Thank god, we got down on the right stop.

Images of Kerry Park at Night

Another Pleasant Seattle morning, we started our day by going around one of the most adorable campuses in the US. It was none other than, University of Washington- Seattle. Old yet classic and a prestigious institution. Since everyone was on vacation, University seemed to be silent but at the same time, we were able to take good pictures with any background we chose without any commotion. Close to lunch time we took off to Chihuly Glass gardens.

Chihuly Gardens

Chihuly gardens are basically garden made out of glass shaped into beautiful structures. We were fortunate enough to also see how they would do by heating the glasses and blow they through a shaft to yield those shapes. I bet my words can’t even get close to describe its magnificence. Hopefully, the pictures explain you its right perspective.

Pike Place Market and the First Starbucks store

After having a lovely time and a thousand pictures in the gardens we decided on going to the pike place market. Pike place market has a ton of stores which also encompasses the famous first Starbucks store ever to be opened still a part of this. It looks so bright and ambient with all the catches from Alaska and produces from the local farmers. They also have honey, flowers and handmade artefacts from locals. I just have some vague memory, as in we did have some food over there and went to the nearest place called Gum wall.

Glance of Seattle

Well, This is one the weirdest places you would probably get to see in my list of places visited. Yes, it looks colourful, Vibrant and even you get the best of pictures from there but its a wall where you eat gums and keep sticking all over the wall with loads of spray paint and graffiti images. Had an amazing time looking at the street are and the creativity of the people of Seattle. Yes that’s pretty much I covered in my First trip to Seattle but three things you should do as a visitor to Seattle are,

Of course the most beautiful Mt. Rainer (If you are a nature lover – That’s one place you should never miss )

Thank god I covered them the very next time on my second trip to Seattle like 4 months back. (May 2018). Well, my First Seattle trip didn’t end there, on the next day we planned on visiting Portland, Oregon. So many memorable moments from the first time I drove a car independently in the US to a drive that’s worth remembering forever. EYYY……. I assume I am pouring a lot more info about the next post… I can’t wait to tell you guys story of my 1-day trip from Seattle. Until then have an amazing time 🙂

Cheers to many more smokey videos and more travel Swetha – Thanks for being an amazing host 🙂

And one thing I completely forgot to tell you guys the whole journey. The amazing host was Swetha (Whom you guys saw in the pics) and if you guys are visiting Seattle. She would be your go-to person if at all you guys need any help with places to see or things to do. (Swetha’s Insta Profile).